Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams once said she felt “like a kid in a candy store” at the start of her time in the Biden administration.
Now, after four years of leading the FWS, Williams still thinks of it as a sweet gig, notwithstanding the endless litigation, bureaucratic sand traps and partisan conflicts that some might expect would have soured her experience.
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Williams said in an interview Friday morning, a few hours before her scheduled departure.
A graduate of the University of Virginia and the Blewett School of Law at the University of Montana, Williams had first been introduced to Washington as deputy Interior solicitor for parks and wildlife between 2011 and 2013. She returned to the University of Montana to teach law and co-direct the school’s Land Use and Natural Resources Clinic before being tapped by then-Gov. Steve Bullock (D) in 2017 to head the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
